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Further Reading

Despite the company's recent return to profitability, Nintendo is still struggling to recapture the kind of robust financial health it showed just a few years ago. An unexpected windfall from the success of Pokemon Go and the one-time sale of the Seattle Mariners notwithstanding, Nintendo is now expected to bring in roughly one-third of the money it did at the peak of Wii-mania in 2009. That's thanks in part to absolutely dismal sales for the Wii U (the company plans to sell only 800,000 systems worldwide in the entire fiscal year), which led Nintendo to cut both its full-year revenue and operating income targets in an earnings release last night.

That 2 million system launch is smaller than the 3.06 million Wii U systems Nintendo shipped during its launch quarter in 2012. That comparison isn't too useful, though, since the Switch number will represent less than a month of sales, compared to about a month and a half for the Wii U's launch quarter. The Switch is also launching in March rather than the busy holiday season in which the Wii U launched.

Unlike the Wii U, which Nintendo initially sold at a loss to try to build a base for software sales, Kimishima said the company won't go into the red selling Switch hardware, but he added that the company is "also listening to what consumers expect from us when setting price." It's not clear at this point if that means Nintendo will sell the system at cost or with a small profit margin built in. In either case, the Switch launch won't have a sizable financial impact on the company until the next fiscal year.

Elsewhere, Kimishima confirmed earlier reports that Nintendo would not be elaborating on the Switch's hardware specs or price this year. Once the system is fully unveiled, though, there will be opportunities for players to sample the unique hybrid system in the wild before it hits store shelves, Kimishima said.

At that point, the Nintendo CEO said he is confident that "consumers would understand that [the Switch] would be different from 3DS." That said, Nintendo will continue to produce and support the 3DS for the time being rather than immediately letting the Switch serve as a replacement, Kimishima said.

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Kyle Orland
Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area. Emailkyle.orland@arstechnica.com//Twitter@KyleOrl